ColdFusion is a server technology for building Internet applications. AIR, which is Adobe's planned software for deploying Internet applications on the desktop, can use ColdFusion as a server component. AIR applications can connect to ColdFusion for enterprise data and services, said Tim Buntel, Adobe senior product marketing manager for ColdFusion. AIR had been known as Apollo and is only available in a beta form at this point; general availability is expected later this year.

Although ColdFusion 7.0.2, released last year, could offer basic data exchange with AIR, version 8 improves data synchronization and performance significantly, according Adobe. Future versions of ColdFusion could expand connectivity to AIR, Buntel said. For example, development tools could be built for this purpose.

Also highlighted in version 8 of ColdFusion is multithreaded support within the ColdFusion language. "It allows developers to run individual parts of their application in separate threads in the application server, so the processing of your application can efficiently use the resources of the server," Buntel said.

Another feature is a Server Monitor capability, which is a rich Internet application that gauges metrics like memory usage and page response times.

Adobe received far greater response than expected to the public beta program launched in late-May. Anticipating that 5,000 developers would download the product, Adobe instead had nearly 14,000 downloads, Buntel said.

A beta user cited the product's speed compared to previous versions. "I've seen, depending on what we're doing, at least two times faster [response times] and in many cases [it has been] up to four or five times faster," said Terry Ryan, IT director at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

The school's student portal application is being written entirely in ColdFusion 8, Ryan said. ColdFusion 8's Server Monitor, meanwhile, has saved the school from having to write its own monitoring tools, he said.

ColdFusion competitors most commonly are PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor), ASP.Net, and Ruby on Rails, Buntel said. But these technologies have a more limited reach than ColdFusion, he said.

"Their emphasis is primarily on traditional Web-based applications and being part of Adobe, we're going beyond just HTML," with capabilities for PDF, Flex, and Air as well as connectivity across Java and .Net, Buntel said.

Version 8 enables invoking of .Net objects and generation of PDF documents. Interactive debugging is offered based on the Eclipse IDE.

The enterprise version of ColdFusion 8 costs $7,499. It enables deployments with a J2EE application server. The standard edition, for smaller installations, costs $1,299.

Adobe today released ColdFusion 8, completing its string of upgrades to the Macromedia software line, which it acquired when Adobe acquired the company in 2005 for $3.4 billion.

Adobe has been hard at work integrating the Macromedia and its own product lines to offer a more comprehensive portfolio. The software maker sees ColdFusion as the glue between client- and server-side technologies and functions.

On the client side, ColdFusion 8 now supports Adobe Flex and AIR technologies, AJAX-based components, and Eclipse-based wizards. On the server side, ColdFusion 8 now integrates with Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), formerly known as Apollo, Microsoft's .NET assemblies and J2EE servers, including JBoss.

ColdFusion 8 also supports application interaction with PDF documents, so you can fill out a PDF document online instead of filling out a form; A server-side function then fills in the form with the data.

Tim Buntel, senior product marketing manager for ColdFusion, told internetnews.com that AIR integration is likely to be an area of focus moving forward.

"We do have a very good connections story with AIR. Publishers can expose server-side functionality to be consumed by an AIR app when connected," he said.

Despite ColdFusion falling a few years out of date (its last revision was in 2005), Adobe was pleasantly surprised to see great interest in the public beta. The company had been hoping for 5,000 testers; It got 14,000. "There was a lot of curiosity of how Adobe would take this old product and shoot new life into it," said Buntel.

Adobe has three pricing levels, one of which everyone can agree on: free. The free version is for developer machines and for local development purposes, meaning it's only used for building and testing on that one computer.

The standard edition carries a suggested price of $1,299 per two CPUs and is intended for small- to medium-sized businesses. The enterprise edition is $7,499 for two CPUs.

Buntel said that Adobe.com is already being run on ColdFusion 8 and that sites will notice a significant improvement in performance even without changes to their application code. He said just upgrading from CF 7 to 8 will yield up to a four-fold performance increase.

Some components of the underlying language are even faster thanks to fine tuning of the tags and functions in the language. Creating a ColdFusion component is over 20 times faster than before, he said.

Buntel also said that Adobe added support for writing multithreaded code, so blocks of code that lend themselves to parallel execution are readily identified and written to run in their own threads.

Adobe has released its ColdFusion 8 development tool for building dynamic websites and rich internet applications.

The new release is designed to increase developer productivity by integrating with complex enterprise environments and identifying bottlenecks to tune the server for better performance. Improved server-monitoring capabilities allow ColdFusion 8 to provide granular reports on which requests are taking the longest and which objects within a page are performing poorly.

Built with the help of over 14,000 public beta program developers, ColdFusion 8 uses Ajax-based components, enabling users to design and deploy engaging applications with more intuitive interfaces. This release offers expanded .Net integration, along with better Windows Vista and JBoss support, to provide enhanced efficiency, interoperability between disparate systems, and scalability.

The new version, which is available in two editions, enables developers to integrate their ColdFusion applications with other Adobe technologies, including Adobe Flex, PDF, Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and Adobe LiveCycle.

ColdFusion 8 Enterprise Edition is designed for delivering multiple websites and applications on one or more servers, and costs £3,706 per two CPUs.

ColdFusion 8 Standard Edition is designed for single applications at the small- to medium-sized business level and costs £642 per two CPUs.

There is also a free, full-featured Developer Edition for development use only.

ColdFusion 8 includes several new features that allow developers and administrators to be more productive, build more robust applications, and to develop applications that perform better than any prior version of the product. It shows Adobe's commitment to the product and to enabling ColdFusion developers to build better web-enabled applications faster than is possible with any other available technology.

I am extremely impressed with the new features and look forward to putting them to use for more and more clients. In my own commercial (client) and internal development, my efficiency as a developer and the performance of my applications both increased significantly on the ColdFusion 8 platform. As someone who often has to troubleshoot, improve, and analyze client applications and server performance, I've also found the new debugging and server monitoring tools to be invaluable. I can't imagine going back to not having them available and making use of them daily.

This is a terrific release and I strongly encourage developers and organizations to evaluate and implement it as soon as possible (http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/).

For a more detailed overview of the significant new features in ColdFusion 8, see my previous editorial online at http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/read/383559.htm.

(Editor's Note: Simon was also interviewed by SYS-CON.TV about CF8 during the product's final beta release.)

Adobe Systems has announced the release of ColdFusion 8, a major new release of its Internet application development software for Mac OS X and Windows. It's available in Standard and Enterprise editions for $1,299 and $7,499 per two-CPU license, respectively. A free Developer Edition is also available.

ColdFusion 8 is used to create Web sites with dynamic content and Internet applications. It was first released in May, 2007 as a public beta version, but this marks the product's official release as a finished product.

New to ColdFusion 8 is the Server Monitor, which helps developers identify bottlenecks in their code and tune the server for better performance. It also features better PDF support, with the ability to generate and interact with PDF documents.

ColdFusion 8 also sports the ability to provide data to applications and frameworks that utilize Asynchronous Javascript And XML (AJAX). you can use tags to access a library of prebuilt AJAX user interface components. The new version also lets you specify any Microsoft .NET object stored locally or remotely and use it in your ColdFusion application, similarly to how Java works.

The new release also lets you interact with Microsoft Exchange servers to read, create and modify calendar events, contacts, task lists and e-mail. And a new Eclipse plug-in debugger can be used to set breakpoints, watch variables and step through code.

Presentation tools specialist Adobe today launched the latest version of its ColdFusion software designed to give developers of web sites and internet applications sizeable performance gains, expanded support and tight integration with other Adobe products.

ColdFusion 8, previously in beta, has been engineered to run apps roughly three to four times faster than previous versions, due to "lots of low-level fine tuning", according to the firm's ColdFusion evangelist Ben Forta.

"We started very early on in the development process doing analysis on what parts of the engine were hit most often, so we could tweak milliseconds out," he added.

Version 8 also features support for .Net, Windows Vista, Mac OSX, JBoss and 64-bit Solaris, as well as Adobe offerings such as AIR, Flex and PDF, the firm said.

"In addition, Ajax support has proven very popular [among the beta testers]  a lot of people want to build next generation user interfaces and we help to simplify this," added Forta.

Adobe Systems is set to release a new version of its ColdFusion software development environment today (July 30). ColdFusion 8 provides an expanded set of tools and technologies aimed at developers building dynamic Web sites and rich Internet applications (RIAs).

ColdFusion 8 (code named "Scorpio") is the first release of the 12-year-old solution as an Adobe product, and there's a lot of interest in it among the installed customer base. Adobe acquired the technology when it purchased Macromedia in 2005. The public beta of the product has been available on the Adobe Labs Web site for several months, and the San Jose, Calif.-based company is reporting more than 14,000 downloads since May.

"This release is about Adobe's DNA being injected into a tested and proven way of building Web apps," said Tim Bruntel, senior product marketing manager for ColdFusion. "Traditionally, people relied on ColdFusion to build applications with static HTML front ends. In version 8, we've introduced the idea of a richer user experience of the content created by a ColdFusion application."

ColdFusion combines an application server with a rapid application development environment designed to integrate databases and Web pages. It employs its own scripting language, the ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML), which is similar to JavaServer Pages, C#, and PHP, and uses tag-based syntax like HTML.

This release introduces a slew of new features to the product, but the loudest buzz is being generated by its .NET integration. As a Java-based solution, ColdFusion has long allowed developers to invoke Java objects natively; the new version adds the ability to invoke .NET objects natively.

ColdFusion 8 includes a new Server Monitor feature, which lets developers identify bottlenecks and tune the server for better performance. It supports seamless integration of ColdFusion apps with other Adobe technologies, such as Flex, PDF, Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and Adobe LiveCycle. Also, this release uses AJAX-based components to allow developers to design and deploy applications by integrating complex environments into intuitive interfaces.

This release also provides expanded support for the leading Java EE application servers, including IBM WebSphere, BEA WebLogic and JBoss.

"ColdFusion is a classic example of a niche tool," observed Gartner analyst Mark Driver. "The existing market is very entrenched, and it plateaued several years ago. But there's a lot of code written in ColdFusion (CFML), and companies don't have a good reason to rewrite it. Plus, many organizations have a lot of ColdFusion skills in-house, and they don't want to retrain their people."

Driver expects the new release to generate a spike in ColdFusion licensing revenue from existing customers, but he doubts that new users will flock to the solution.

"I haven't talked with anyone thinking about trying ColdFusion for the first time in the past three years," he said.

Nevertheless, he feels that ColdFusion will continue to be a solid offering, especially in Java shops that need to write quick and dirty applications.

"ColdFusion is a perfect way to augment the Java skills of a certain class of developers," he said. "It's not necessarily going to be the principle development platform moving forward, but it's a great tool to have in the tool chest."

Looking into the product's future, Driver has a suggestion for Adobe: open source it.

"No one has told me that there are any plans to do it, but I wouldn't be shocked if, in the next year or so, we see Adobe open source a significant portion of ColdFusion," he said. "It worked well with Flash, and I think it would be a good move for the company to get the proprietary stench off the product, to compete more strongly with technologies like PHP and Ruby on Rails. That would be my recommendation to Adobe; it could flush the entrenched leaders out of their comfortable market niches by changing the dynamics of the game."

ColdFusion 8 is available now in two commercial editions. ColdFusion 8 Enterprise Edition is a high-performance solution for delivering multiple Web sites and applications on one or more servers or on existing Java EE application server installations. The other commercial edition is ColdFusion 8 Standard, an easy-to-manage configuration for single applications, aimed at small-to-medium-size businesses. There's also a free Developer Edition, which is a full-featured server for development use only.

Adobe today announced the immediate availability of Adobe ColdFusion 8 software. ColdFusion 8, a powerful development tool for building dynamic Web sites and Internet applications. Since May 2007, more than 14,000 developers have actively participated in the ColdFusion 8 public beta, praising the new capabilities in this latest version.

ColdFusion 8 Server Monitor lets developers swiftly identify bottlenecks and tune the server for better performance. "The server monitoring capabilities in ColdFusion 8 are outstanding, offering granular-level access to identify slow requests and terminate runaway processes," said Nick Walters, programming manager, Lightyear Network Solutions, in the press release. "We can now receive actual detail as to which requests are taking the longest and which objects within a page are performing poorly. Server monitoring with ColdFusion 8 is leaps ahead of third-party applications on the market."

 ColdFusion 8 Enterprise Edition is a high-performance solution for delivering multiple Web sites and applications on one or more servers, or on existing J2EE application server installations. Enterprise Edition is available for US$7,499 per 2-CPUs.

 ColdFusion 8 Standard is an easy-to-manage configuration for single applications that is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses. Standard Edition is available for $1,299 per 2-CPUs.

ColdFusion may also be used for development at no cost with the free Developer Edition, a full-featured server for development use only. Special upgrade pricing is available to owners of valid ColdFusion MX 6 and 7 licenses.

Today, Adobe started shipping the new ColdFusion 8 that holds several interesting features to Flash-centric sites, but the pricing is still off for non-US citizens.

As sneaked at WebDU, the new ColdFusion 8 has several nice features (note the comments) for developers using server generated Flash content, but it seems that Adobe refuse to listen to the community when it comes to their pricing policy. Yet again, it is far cheaper for many users to fly to the US and buy a copy there than buying the software locally. This is especially true if your company needs the Enterprise version of CF. The price difference (based on todays conversion rates) is $3400! Even for US customers, the price is steep considering that CF is essentially competing with free technologies such as PHP and ASP.NET. Given the stability of popular CF applications such as MXNA, CF is now an even harder sell.

After our initial article on the CS3 pricing, we've gotten feedback from users all over the world. "I run a small company in Iceland and we badly need to buy Adobe licenses (and they make it oh so hard for us customers to get our hands on their products - which is also insane! Why can't I just download the damned thing)." says Jónas Björgvin Antonsson CEO of Icelandic agency Gogogic. This is indeed a very good point. Most other software companies these days are able to both maintain a local presence AND sell their software online - no matter where in the world the buyer is. With Adobe, only US and Canadian customers get this option.

If it's so that Adobe is unable to make money from their employees overseas, they really need to rethink how they spend their money. The only time the end users see these employees are at events that are pure sales pitches. They seldom show up at user group meetings or offer any value to the end user. Adobe reps overseas often offer some training, but this is all full price. There are of course a few good exceptions to this, but they are primary sales reps. If the international pricing is defended by the need to have a presence, this is a big joke. If the premium is for the sake of support, this really does not cut it either. The web and the online communities are still the best place to get answers to software problems.

Adobe - please do something about this ASAP. Approximately half your customers are overseas, so why should they be second rate?

Adobe announced the immediate availability of ColdFusion 8 on Monday. The new version of the dynamic Web site development application added the ability to monitor Web servers for performance-related issues, and improved Ajax support.

It also improved integration with other Adobe applications including Adobe Flex, Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), and Adobe LiveCycle, improved PDF creation, enhanced the ability to extract content from PDF documents, and more.

ColdFusion 8 Standard, which is geared towards small and mid-sized businesses, is priced at US$1,300. The Enterprise version is designed to handle multiple sites and Web applications on one or more servers, and costs $7,500. Upgrades are priced at $650 and $3,750 respectively.

Adobe Systems today announced the availability of Adobe ColdFusion 8 software. ColdFusion 8, a development tool for building dynamic Web sites and Internet applications, increases developer productivity, integrates with complex enterprise environments, and delivers rich and engaging experiences for users. Since May 2007, more than 14,000 developers have actively participated in the ColdFusion 8 public beta. ColdFusion 8 is available in two editions: ColdFusion 8 Enterprise Edition is a high-performance solution for delivering multiple Web sites and applications on one or more servers, or on existing J2EE application server installations; ColdFusion 8 Standard is an easy-to-manage configuration for single applications that is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses. The Enterprise Edition is available for US$7,499 per 2-CPUs, and Standard Edition is available for $1299 per 2-CPUs.

Adobe has announced the shipment of ColdFusion 8, the latest incarnation of its web development tool. The eighth edition introduces several major features, most notably the Server Monitor. This allows developers to analyze site aspects such as memory usage and page processing time, picking out which objects and processes are responsible for the longest delays. The program now also has greater Ajax support, specifically in the inclusion of pre-made components such as text editors and tab navigators.

Other highlights include the ability to generate PDF documents or extract data from them, and run an Eclipse plug-in debugger, which allows custom, step-by-step breakdowns of all the flaws in an application's code. There are two editions of ColdFusion 8: the Standard Edition is aimed at small- to mid-sized businesses, while Enterprise is intended for handling multiple sites and applications on one or more servers. Pricing is $1,300 and $7,500 new, respectively, or $650 and $3,750 as an upgrade. Mac OS X 10.4 is required.

Adobe announced the availability of the shipping version of ColdFusion 8. Designed for developers building dynamic Web sites and Internet applications, ColdFusion 8 targets day-to-day development challenges to increase developer productivity and integrate with complex enterprise environments. ColdFusion 8 uses Adobe Flex and Ajax-based components, and includes advanced Eclipse-based wizards and debugging to help developers build applications and identify and fix problems, while a new Server Monitor quickly identifies bottlenecks and tunes the server for better performance. It integrates with .NET assemblies, support for Windows Vista and new J2EE servers, for enhanced flexibility, interoperability, and scalability, and interacts with Adobe PDF documents and forms for a printable, portable way to capture information. ColdFusion 8 is available in two versions: ColdFusion 8 Standard and ColdFusion 8 Enterprise Edition. Each license is valid for 2CPUs. Adobe is also offering discounted upgrade pricing for customers who own ColdFusion MX 6.X or ColdFusion MX 7.

Adobe Systems Inc. has announced the immediate availability of Adobe ColdFusion 8 software. ColdFusion 8, a development tool for building dynamic Web sites and Internet applications, increases developer productivity, integrates with complex enterprise environments, and delivers rich and engaging experiences for users.

Adobe said that since May 2007, more than 14,000 developers have actively participated in the ColdFusion 8 public beta. ColdFusion 8 Server Monitor lets developers quickly identify bottlenecks and tune the server for better performance.

"The server monitoring capabilities in ColdFusion 8 are outstanding, offering granular-level access to identify slow requests and terminate runaway processes," said Nick Walters, programming manager, Lightyear Network Solutions. "We can now receive actual detail as to which requests are taking the longest and which objects within a page are performing poorly. Server monitoring with ColdFusion 8 is leaps ahead of third-party applications on the market."

"As an entertainment company, delivering rich, dynamic entertainment is essential. The ease of integrating Adobe ColdFusion 8 and Flex applications means that we can continually provide customers with engaging online services that combine rich content and relevant information," said Nolan Dubeau, creative director of interactive services and Web marketing, XM Canada. "I definitely see us rewriting certain areas of our Web site to integrate Adobe Flex and Ajax with ColdFusion 8 applications. Adobe has done a fantastic job of delivering a comprehensive environment for developing and deploying engaging applications."

ColdFusion 8 offers expanded support such as .NET integration, Microsoft Windows Vista and JBoss support, and integration with the latest version of enterprise databases, giving organizations enhanced efficiency, interoperability and scalability.

"The new Exchange and .NET integration added to ColdFusion 8 provides outstanding functionality. ColdFusion allows communication between even more types of disparate systems, which was previously very difficult," said Nicholas Kwiatkowski, Communication Systems Analyst at MichiganStateUniversity. "With ColdFusion 8, we can develop applications incredibly fast and deploy them to customers with minimal lag and programming resources. The time savings with ColdFusion 8 is phenomenal."

ColdFusion 8 is available in two editions: ColdFusion 8 Enterprise Edition is a high-performance solution for delivering multiple Web sites and applications on one or more servers, or on existing J2EE application server installations; ColdFusion 8 Standard is an easy-to-manage configuration for single applications that is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses. Enterprise Edition is available for $7499 per 2-CPUs, and Standard Edition is available for $1299 per 2-CPUs.

ColdFusion may also be used for development at no cost with the free Developer Edition, a full-featured server for development use only. Special upgrade pricing is available to owners of valid ColdFusion MX 6 and 7 licenses. ColdFusion 8 is immediately available for purchase online from the Adobe Store, directly from Adobe and through Adobe's network of partners and resellers.

ColdFusion 8 offers expanded support such as .NET integration, Microsoft Windows Vista and JBoss support, and integration with the latest version of enterprise databases.

The software is available in two editions: ColdFusion 8 Enterprise Edition is a high-performance solution for delivering multiple Web sites and applications on one or more servers, or on existing J2EE application server installations; ColdFusion 8 Standard is aimed at single applications and is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses. Enterprise Edition is available for US$7499 per 2-CPUs, and Standard Edition is available for US$1299 per 2-CPUs.

There is also a free Developer Edition, fully-featured server software for development use only.

The software integrates with other Adobe technologies, including Flex, PDF, and more and uses Ajax-based components.

ColdFusion 8 is available in two editions: ColdFusion 8 Enterprise Edition costs £3,706 per two computers and delivers multiple websites and applications on one or more servers, or on existing J2EE application server installations. ColdFusion 8 Standard costs £641.95 and is for single applications.

Recently it was announced that ColdFusion was being improved with Microsoft .Net support, enabling .Net objects to be invoked from within the ColdFusion language.